PCFormat Forum Archive

Actually, this is more a story of how Apple earned mad respect from me, but there's a dropped iPad in there too

My respect for apple went up 100 notches a few nights ago, and here's why.

Two weeks ago, I walked out of an Apple store here in Canada with a shiney new iPad that my lovely girlfriend bought for me. Now before I continue, let me say that the sexiness of an Apple product can not be described, it can only be experienced.

After playing with this thing a lot over the last two weeks, I've really started to love it. Anyway, a couple of days ago I stopped at a coffee shop, bought myself a drink, and sat down at a table. Like an idiot, I put my iPad on my lap while I took off my coat, and as you'd expect, it slipped off my lap. Of course, it fell onto the edge of the hard metal foot of the table at which I was sitting.

After I calmed the screaming in my head, I picked up my new toy only to find a good, solid dent in the frame. Two of them, actually. The screen was still good, and the device itself stll functioned, though. 

Anyway, I sat there thinking "You know what? I'm going to take it to the Apple store and see if they'll swop it out". I didn't believe for a second that they would, but I figured I'd give it a shot.

I walked into the Apple store that night and explained my story to the guy at 'The Genius Bar'. The Genius looked at me and said "We don't do refunds on damage like this, particularly because it's the user's fault, but, because it's still relatively new, and because this is your first real Apple product, we'll make an exception". 

They took back the iPad that I damaged with my own stupidity, and gave me a new one in return, at no extra cost to me. Not a refurbished iPad, a brand new one. This, this, is customer care. Any company tha will lose that kind of money to keep ONE customer deserves the kind of success that Apple has achieved. 

This experience honestly makes me want to make SURE to buy a Mac as my next computer. 

Anyone that knows my tech-related opinions well knows that I've never been much of an Apple fan, but Apple has gained so much respect from me, and I'll support these guys because of how much they care for me as a customer. 

tl;dr
I dropped my iPad like a chop, damaged it, and Apple's gave me a brand new one for free. They get oodles of respect from me. 

Very nice, but you could have just said "I dropped my new ipad, Apple swopped it yay!"

Can I have 5 minutes of my life back

Johnny Fairplay wrote:Very nice, but you could have just said "I dropped my new ipad, Apple swopped it yay!"

Can I have 5 minutes of my life back

1) Better?
2) It took you 5 minutes to read that?

DAE_JA_VOO wrote:I dropped my iPad like a chop, damaged it, and Apple's gave me a brand new one for free.

@Johnny Fairplay: He did do the decent thing and put a TL;DR in for simians like you

DAE do you live in Canada now? Or will you be coming back to SA?

I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I didn't think Steve had a heart.

meh - still too expensive imo. (God I want one!)

I double-triple dare you to find that service in SA.
Your "respect" is misdirected, your experience is more a reflection of Canadian Customer Service than it is a reflection on the product.

Great customer support.
However I cannot give the same respect to the SA Apple stores I've been to.
Lethargic service is the only way I can descibe them..

Sojourn wrote:meh - still too expensive imo. (God I want one!)

I double-triple dare you to find that service in SA.
Your "respect" is misdirected, your experience is more a reflection of Canadian Customer Service than it is a reflection on the product.

I've had that exact same good service from the Apple resellers that I use in SA (Digicape and Project 3). In the US and Canada not all tech companies just swap out products like that, and they don't have nearly as good customer care as Apple.

Glad to hear DAE, I knew you'd see the light...

Screeper wrote:Great customer support.
However I cannot give the same respect to the SA Apple stores I've been to.
Lethargic service is the only way I can descibe them..

That's because Apple has no presence in SA. Those stores are merely branded as 'iStore', but have nothing to do with Apple besides importing their products. The sales people there have the same knowledge as those at Incredible Connection, which isn't very much at all. If buying Apple products in SA through regular channels it would be best to use a good reseller. The two I use most often and always have extremely good service from are Macnificent in JHB and Digicape down here in CPT.

If you pay a visit to an Apple store in the US/Canada with full blown Genius Bar etc you'd be amazed. Particularly the 5th Avenue store in NYC.

Ryan, I'm still skeptical dog.

Screeper wrote:However I cannot give the same respect to the SA Apple stores I've been to.
Lethargic service is the only way I can descibe them..

My South African experience was different.

They were very eager to help, but not that technically proficient...
Their sales pitch was focussed on the bells and whistles Apple like to add on to their products to attract the lowest common denomnator crowd who oooh and aaah over bright colours, reflective surfaces and other gimmicks.

I have heard stories similar to DJV about people at iStores in SA going above and beyond to make customers happy. Not as far above and beyond as in the OP tho.

Sojourn wrote:meh - still too expensive imo

+1

Microsoft did the same for my Xbox

Hmm....@jamin, the thing is, we are only 60 odd registered apple tech pros in the country, and the istores dont pay well, so we are all in good enterprise businesses. So don't expect sales people to understand technical queries....

chowzen wrote:only 60 odd registered apple tech pros in the country

I don't know what a registered apple tech pro is. Are you a wizard?
Does apple have a server OS or some other enterprise level software I don't know about that some companies in South Africa use...

What that means is that I am certified Apple Support Professional. - Apple Technician if you will. And yes, Apple has got Servers - Blades (Xserve) and the Apple Pro server(Desktop servers) and the Apple mini Server(SMB servers). And they all run the Apple OSX Server.
I am not a wizard, I am a Master. now make me some HotChoxx.X

Interesting. I've never seen OSX Server...
I have used Solaris - I suppose thats close enough, right - one stolen-for-profit Unix OS is as good as another

Must be good money in that tho. If Apple can get businesses to throw money at it's hardware and software the way private citizens do... you must be minting it

Xserve has been discontinued by the way. They were actually surprisingly good, although obviously not a very big presence in SA.